Welcome to Skyrim
by Laluzi
Summary: Zariel is just a Breton trying to get through daily life, but Thalmor agents and renegade laws of physics won't stop getting in her way.


**AN: I don't own Skyrim. Shocking news, ne?**

It was a lovely day in Whiterun. The air was an unseasonably balmy forty-five degrees, the sky was clear, and the city had not been ravaged by marauding dragons for an entire three hours.

A Breton leaned against a wooden wall, absentmindedly looking around. The young redhead was waiting for the construction work on her house to finish – a slight error in physics while building Breezehome was causing an uncanny amount of stored weapons to fall through the floor, and she wanted her living space free of intangible wormholes. After all, what if her sweetrolls got sucked in? Such a horrible thought, not being greeted by the sight of a moist, glistening pastry on her bedside stand, its top caressed by a dusting of creamy icing that could have been sent down by the Aedra themselves. Alas, she was not inside her home, greeted by the waft of divine pastry scent. And she was growing more bored by the moment.

Throughout her life - specifically the past few months - Zariel had done a lot of things. The problem was that the things she had done were, unfortunately, _done, _and at a time like now, she found herself with absolutely nothingto do. She briefly considered asking around to see if anyone had favors they needed undertaking - and hopefully were willing to pay for. But that was a stupid idea, she scolded herself. Not _everyone_ had random heirlooms they needed fetched or loved ones in distress. This was just a town. People lived simple lives, and she could probably talk to everyone in Whiterun's market and get nothing more interesting than the weather.

She shifted, trying to find a more sun-warmed spot on the wall. Two minutes and several splinters later, she abandoned the endeavor. 'Warmth' was not a concept that seemed to exist in Skyrim – in fact, she was usually so thrilled at the prospect of finding heat that she'd gladly step into a hearth or a live forge. It wasn't like it hurt or anything.

With a sigh, she patted blindly at her sides until her fingers found the sculpted hilt of her malachite longsword. It was a very special blade, one that would never warp or crack under any amount of damage. In fact, it was the only one of its kind, the owner of the pawn shop where she'd purchased it had assured her. More importantly, though, it was good for all manner of stabbing, slashing, breaking, decapitating, and bread slicing, and had served her well in many a bandit camp, bandit camp, overpriced shop, bandit camp, and dinner, respectively.

Zariel wholly felt that it was time to get doing one of those things. Except for dinner. It was much too early for that.

Detaching herself from the wall, the Breton rolled her shoulders and worked a kink out of her leg. She started towards Whiterun's residential district, heading for the city gates. One of the Hold's guards paused in his daily rounds at her approach.

He shot her a sideways, patronizing glance. "Let me guess," he drawled. "Someone stole your sweetroll…"

Zariel shook her head, eyes wide with concern. The notorious sweetroll thief had been spotted recently again in Whiterun. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep soundly, not when the nights ran long and nobody's sweetroll was safe. Well, she also couldn't sleep well because she was a werewolf, but nobody was supposed to know about that.

She moved past him. "Hail, Harbinger," the soldier added respectfully.

Another guard came up to her as she trekked towards the gates. "Hey," she greeted, with a quirky little salute.

"I used to be an adventurer like you," he said wistfully. "Then I took an arrow to the knee…"

Zariel nodded sagely. It seemed to be happening to everyone these days. Perhaps they needed kneepads. Come to think of it, she'd had several arrows of all builds find purchase in her kneecaps, but they'd been nothing a few carrots hadn't instantaneously fixed.

Outside of Whiterun's walls, a light breeze teased the hardy tundra grass. Skyrim's roads were virtually unpatrolled – the guards in this land did not seem to possess the high technology of riding horses - and they seemed to have a higher concentration of animals than the plains, forests, and frozen wastelands outside, but she took them anyways, if only because there was no chance of running into a giant and its literally astral-projecting club. She'd known a guy once that had tried to go adventuring and looting in one of their camp. It hadn't ended well. Guy owed her septims, too.

A frantic trumpeting filled the air, and Zariel jolted, alarmed. She quickly found the culprit - a bit off the side of the road, a mammoth dropped out of the sky and plummeted to its subsequently messy death on the plains. The Breton shrugged and moving on.

Inexplicably, she thought about mudcrabs.

She squinted. It looked like somebody was on the path ahead of her. It was probably just another lost civilian with a missing heirloom, or a wandering guard… A closer look revealed that it was an Altmer, who looked neither like a bandit, or cannon fodder. Zariel didn't like High Elves much. Not after that incident in Solitude. That one shopkeeper had called her armor chintzy? She hoped that they hadn't relieved themselves of her little donation yet.

More importantly, though, the person had cool-looking clothes. And Zariel totally digged cool-looking clothes.

She jogged to catch up with the travelling fashionista. "Hi-"

The Altmer turned around, scowling. "I am a Thalmor Justiciar, and therefore far superior to your degenerate human self. Move along."

"The Thalmor?" She squinted. That sounded kind of like Endarie. "Are you one of those people who runs Radiant Raiment? I know absolutely nothing about the several hundred cheese wheels that were unloaded in there two weeks ago. Nothing at all. Seriously."

"Perhaps you have something you'd like to confess?" the mer said bitingly.

Oh dear. Her mind leapt into frantic, panicky overdrive. Somehow, the Altmer had seen through her clever ruse. It was time for a distraction. "You have cool robes," she pointed out, quite honestly.

"Spoken like a true heretic," the Justiciar sneered. "And now you die as one!"

"Woah, wait, wha-"

She was then stabbed through the stomach with an Elven sword. It hurt.

"The hell?"

Staggering under the duress of her the vicious wound, Zariel hastily consumed two bowls of tomato soup, a slab of beef, a horker loaf, three grilled leeks, a wheel of goat cheese, a half-eaten loaf of bread, and twenty-eight red apples. The application of food healed the gaping slash in her midsection just in time for the Thalmor to stab her through it again.

"Damn it!" she yelled. "What am I supposed to eat for dinner?"

A particularly vicious blow sent Zariel staggering back; in a frantic attempt to regain her balance, she stuck her sword into the ground, trying to use it to prop herself up – and leaving her already wounded self terribly open in the process.

Miraculously, her foe seemed stricken with a sudden compulsion to sheathe her own blade. "I'll let you live… this time," the Thalmor agent snarled, straightening out of her fighting crouch.

Zariel blinked, dumbfounded. "…Come again?"

The uppity Altmer paused, halfway into the act of turning away. "Need something?"

"What the… are you just seriously going to walk away?"

"You are interfering with Thalmor business, citizen."

"I'm not done with you yet!" she shouted, shaking her fist.

The Justiciar ignored her completely, heading down the road as if nothing had ever happened. Zariel let her hands drop to her side, utterly perplexed. Her eyebrows raised. Then narrowed. The hands came up again.

Several moments later, the Thalmor warrior exploded in a magnificent pair of fireballs cast from behind.

A fair amount of time after that, Zariel returned to Whiterun with a cool new outfit. She was thrilled. Those awesome robes hadn't even been damaged. She wasn't sure how that had worked out, considering she'd burned the body beyond recognition, but she wasn't going to complain.

The sun had long since set, meaning the work on Breezehome was certainly complete, and the cobblestone streets were mostly empty. Some guy was trying to give her a letter, but the issue was quickly solved after an irritated Fus Ro Dah.

A guard watched the unfortunate courier's body sail over the city walls to his certain death, then turned his stern gaze on the Breton. "Miss, I'm going to need to ask you to stop. That… _shouting_… is making people nervous."

Zariel tilted her head and opened her mouth as if to speak. Instead, a strange rushing sound left her throat, and the words 'Hey, skeever butt!" echoed from around the corner. The incensed guard would have no insults to his posterior, which he was secretly quite proud of, and ran to find the source of the disturbance. With a muffled snicker, the Breton quickly ducked into the safety of her house.

The door creaked as she opened it; clearly, the renovation had not included oiling the hinges. The open hearth – she was really going to need to fence that off one of these days – cast flickering bars of light strafing through the otherwise dark room.

Her weapons racks, for once, were not empty; several Daedric artifacts of untold power were now gently gathering dust in her displays, which now actually seemed capable of holding them. It was a lovely change to enter her house now without the Mace of Molag Bal falling on her head. That time when Nazeem had tried to follow her inside… it had taken weeks to get the bloodstain out of the floorboards.

Zariel made her way upstairs, picking her way through the clutter that she really could not be bothered to move. Proventus Avenicci's idea of 'home decorations' seemed to have involved dumping a bag of silverware and a shipment of kettles on the floor. It was a shame about the no-refund policy.

Her lodgings seemed as homely as ever, her bed strewn carefully with every gem and glittery object she'd picked up on her travels. She deposited the now-deceased Thalmor's sword into her bedside table, snugly fitting the blade alongside the other two hundred and sixty three pieces of metalwork she' managed to comfortably fit inside.

But she was plagued by a growing sense of unease. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. She couldn't tell what – it was a flicker of intuition, the ghostly sensation she could have described as somebody walking over her grave. Something dark and malevolent, intangible but ever-so-clearly _there_.

And then she knew.

A horrified scream echoed off Breezehome's recently wormhole-proofed walls, culminating in a bloodcurdling, ululating wail of terror that reverberated all throughout the city of Whiterun.

Her bedside tabletop was empty, save for a burnished silver plate.

Somebody had stolen her sweetroll.


End file.
